


The Consequences of Betrayal

by YinNocturne



Series: Symbiote 'verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate Universe
Genre: ALMOST Character Death, Drowning, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Non-Consensual Body Modification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YinNocturne/pseuds/YinNocturne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regulus Black was the last person to fall through the Inferi laden waters at the top of the lake, the only one to still be alive when he reached the bottom for centuries.</p><p>Set prior to Symbiote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consequences of Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> A sideline to Symbiote, this explains a little bit of backstory, and also hopefully will go more into the biological changes caused by Symbiotes - and the interaction with magic. 
> 
> This literally came about to explain why the Symbiotes didn't know English, even though Regulus Black was definitely in The Cave, and probably died via Inferi in canon.

As Regulus drinks down the potion he knows he’s going to die. Likely it will be slow, and he will be painfully aware of the entire process. The Dark Lord is not known for his kindness, or his mercy. He had given strict instructions to Kreacher to take the locket and destroy it as soon as it was free of the basin. At least his death would have meaning, would begin to pay penance for his foolishness. 

He can feel his mind succumbing, so he locks his self away. Erecting an extensive set of mental shields he’s been working on since the beginning of his plan to betray the Dark Lord. Regulus had finally mastered the pinnacle of occlumency: a technique that allowed the user to ‘throw away the key’ to their very mind, locking it away from outside forces even when the user was asleep or unconscious. Or, in Regulus’s case, under the influence of a mind-altering poison developed by a Dark Lord to guard his very life. 

Regulus couldn’t take the chance that the Dark Lord has been alerted by some alarm, and would show up to rip the information out of him. Even if his body is half dead. Satisfied at least, that Kreacher would have time to properly take care of the artifact, he dove straight into the pool with his wand gripped tight. No sense in prolonging the inevitable. If he has to go down, he wants to go down fighting. 

Regulus’s initial plunge takes him through the layer of water where the Inferi lie. He spins, putting his back to the eventual bottom, and aims up. Firing non-verbal cutting curses, blasting hexes, and even the occasional borrowed Sectumsempra. Snape truly is a brilliant spellmaker, if blinded by the Dark. The borrowed spell rips an Inferi who get too close to rotting shreds. 

Afterwards, he thinks he should’ve realised it, when all the Inferi suddenly stopped coming. Floating back up towards the surface, but he’d just relaxed. Regulus was relieved he wouldn’t be eaten while still aware enough to feel it. The last of his breath bubbled out of his lungs and danced up through the shadows. ‘There goes the last trace of me.’ He thinks. 

Then there’s something slick sliding up his back, and the sharp bite of pain at the nape of his neck.  _ ‘Guess I’m being eaten after all,’ _ is his last thought, before the blackness consumes him.

The symbiote who takes Regulus as a host is an older one. Although still young enough to be exploring the main cavern, rather than heading straight into the open ocean to feed. One of the last of the current queen’s first clutch. 

It’s rare to get live bodies down here. Most are already reanimated, or have succumbed to their injuries long before they sink into the symbiotes territory. The queen passed on memories of bodies from ships that shattered on the rocks near the entrance to the tunnel that leads into their cave from queen that had birthed the queen before. But that stopped many generations ago. 

Even so, when the symbiote encounters the body, long-buried instincts flare and in moments it has burrowed into the soft neck of it’s new host to curl around the spinal cord. It pushes a pheromone flare out through newly forming organs to inform the colony of it’s departure. It knows it will have to move to the surface quickly, host bodies aren’t meant to spend all their time underwater. 

It sucks water into the body’s lungs, feeling it rush out of still tender gills. Good. The host is adapting well. 

But there is something wrong. 

There is no mind.

The body functions, but the host’s mind is gone. 

The symbiote instincts push it through it’s alarm, forcing it out of the cave; out into the open ocean and up to the beach. The body must be nourished if it is to survive. 

When Regulus wakes, soaked to the bone on rough grit, he thinks he’s still hallucinating. That the sky painted pink and orange about him is a flight of fancy, his mind conjuring colours onto the canvas of black water above him in the indeterminate time before his lungs are filled with water and he drowns. 

It takes him a shamefully long time to realise the water wouldn’t be lapping at his ankles, if he was back in the cave falling to the bottom of a lake. When he does, he tries to bolt upright. But he finds his muscles stiff and sluggish; so in reality, he slowly levers himself up. Pushing himself up onto his elbows until he can see the horizon, and the blue of the ocean that meets the glowing sky above. 

_ “What.” _

That’s definitely his voice, but he hasn’t spoken. The raw growl is significantly lower than his normal tenor, even accounting for the abuse of near-drowning and long disuse.

_ “You’re alive…” _

It’s also speaking another language.

“Okay, I’m definitely hallucinating still. I have to be. Merlin, who knows just what was in that basin.”  And that was his voice, ragged and rough, but the familiar tenor.

_ “You are! You are. But… I can’t understand you.” _

At the new string of garbled sounds issuing from  his mouth, without his permission, Regulus turned his focus inward, surveying his mind space with a keen, quick eye.But even as he assessed his mental barriers he found them completely intact, no sign of tampering. No holes, no signs that any other presence had been into his mind since they’d been erected. His mind was pristine, if recovering from the effects of the Dark Lord’s poison. 

Confused, he looked back out, watching idly as the water level rose. It was now covering his thighs. Strangely, he wasn’t cold. Something had happened, Regulus realised in a moment of sharp clarity. The water around him felt pleasant, not at all like  Britain’s icy seas should. 

Something had changed. With new resolve he turned back to his mental shields, there must be some clue he could find. Somewhere. 


End file.
